Donald Trump Politics

by Geraldo Rivera | Aug 18, 2016

After Donald Trump got the nomination, I was sure that he would pivot to the center. His whole adult life has been characterized by his moderate pragmatic politics. He was a pro choice friend of the Clintons. When he said he had New York values as opposed to Senator Ted Cruz in the primaries for example, that resonated deeply with people like me from the political Center.

Of course his strident and discordant remarks about Mexican immigrants being rapists and drug dealers grated. But all of us who knew him were sure that he had overstated unintentionally and would soon correct the error.

Now we come a year later. Despite inflammatory remarks about Muslims, menstruation, the disabled, POWs, the 2nd Amendment and a Gold Star family, he has the nomination and he's head-to-head with Hillary Clinton.
It seems the perfect time, maybe the last chance for him to do the long overdue pivot to the center.

Instead he goes even harder right, instead he picks to lead his campaign someone like Steven Bannon a man who once called Bill Kristol the conservative commentator a renegade Jew. Bannon's a flamethrower, a Street Fighting extremist.

Bannon's selection might satisfy Mr Trump's feeling of defiance. But I sense that it is the end of his attempts to get a majority of the American people to vote for him. There are just not enough angry white people to go around.